


Control Mechanisms

by mnemosyne23



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: F/M, elements of BDSM
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 20:12:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1123907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mnemosyne23/pseuds/mnemosyne23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He gives her what she needs, and she gives him what he wants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Control Mechanisms

**Author's Note:**

> Joss is boss.

When Jayne strides into the common room, River wonders how no one else can feel his electric corona; it sizzles down her spine like bacon fat, thick and rich and scalding. The hair on her arms stands on end and the back of her neck starts to tingle and her palms start to itch and she can't believe nobody else can feel it. He's exuding want like a drunk with no money, begging on the street.  


  
She thinks she can feel it best because she's the only one who's seen him naked.  


  
"Doc, I gotta borrow your moonbrain sister for a bit," the mercenary grunts, hovering just inside the doorway so that he's framed from behind in a halo of darkness.   


  
"What for?" Simon asks, glancing up from his scrambled eggs, clearly puzzled. The rest of the crew, save Jayne, is gathered around the table, enjoying the first real breakfast they've had in ages. The fact that Jayne hasn't joined them this morning hasn't rung alarm bells for anyone but River; but again, she's seen him naked. She knows his little secrets and the things he tells his pillow at night. That gives a girl insight even a Reader isn't privy to.  


  
"Cuz I need her gorram brain, that's why," Jayne snaps, clearly irritated. "Crazy, get your ass up."  


  
"Jayne," Zoe warns, her voice a soft-spoken threat.   


  
"Nice to see you're your usual bright and shiny self this morning, Jayne," Mal observes drily from his spot at the head of the table. "Why don't you pull up a chair and have something to eat. Maybe it'll turn that frown of yours upside down, make you a little less ugly for a bit."  


  
"Ain't hungry."  


  
"That's a first."  


  
"Look, gorrammit, I said I ain't hungry and I meant it!" He glares around the table before his eyes finally settle on River. She hasn't blinked during his entire tirade, and she takes the full brunt of his anger straight down the gullet, like swallowing a soccer ball. For a moment she chokes on it.  


  
Then he looks away.  


  
"Finish up what you're eatin' then come find me," he mutters, before turning on his heel and stalking away. River watches him go, mentally bypassing his t-shirt and filling in the fluid interplay of muscle across his broad shoulders and down the solid column of his back.   


  
"That right there was the picture perfect definition of an uncouth bastard," Mal proclaims.  


  
"He is in rare form this morning," Zoe affirms.  


  
" _Mei mei_ , you don't have to help him," Simon tells River in soothing tones, as if she were a five-year old and not a lethal weapon. "Just ignore him. If he bothers you, I'll handle it."  


  
"I want to help," she murmurs, still staring at the door. It seemed doubly empty now, deprived of Jayne's impressive size.   


  
"Why?" Kaylee asks, clearly perplexed. "Jayne ain't no fun when he's bein' all pissy."  


  
River blinks once before answering.   


  
"He might be," she murmurs, and leaves it at that.  


  
  
  


\--------------------

  


  
  
  
When nightmares come, the only cure is skin.   


  
River knows all about nightmares. She's had them so often now, in such magnitude, that she no longer considers them aberrations. She remembers those early days, when she'd wake screaming in _Serenity's_ infirmary and fling herself into a corner, cowering away from even Simon's gentle touch. Over time she grew out of that; learned to trust the comfort hands could give her. Now, when she wakes screaming, she huddles in her bed and waits until the hands come to tell her she's safe, she's loved, and she's home.  


  
When she sleeps she hears _Serenity's_ dreams. They echo in her head like soft voices on the bulkhead. Sometimes they're enough to scare away her nightmares, and she sleeps peaceful. Those are nights she treasures.  


  
Last night was not one of those nights. Last night she dreamt about Reavers.  


  
Because when Jayne dreams he dreams of women, and liquor, and guns, and sometimes chubby babies he can bounce on his knee. He'd never admit to that last one, but River knows his pillow talk, and that includes his cuddly dreams.  


  
But when Jayne has a nightmare, he dreams about Reavers.  


  
Always, always Reavers.  


  
And her.  


  
  
  


\-------------------------

  


  
  
  
She slips into Jayne's bunk on silent feet and makes sure to lock the hatch, easily stepping around the pile of dirty clothes at the foot of the ladder. She's been here enough times before that she can negotiate her way through the tiny room with her eyes closed and her hands held firmly at her sides. The room is pitch black; he's turned off every light, even the runner lights above his wall of weapons. The huffing and puffing of his breathing is like a caged animal in the dark. Primal fears at the base of her skull prick up the hairs on her arms and down the back of her neck. Darkness this thick is like a living thing, brushing over her arms and filling her throat until it feels like she's swimming in ink.   


  
"Where were you?"  


  
The growl is low, pitched deeper than his normal speech, and it glides over the pleasure centers in her brain like molasses over the back of a spoon. It's possession and release bent into Ws. It's the sound the Snake made when he offered Eve the Apple.  


  
"Eating," she explains, though its hard to talk through the suffocating dark.  


  
"I told you to get your ass up. You should've e't faster."  


  
"Suspicions would arise." She takes a tentative step in the direction of his bunk. If Jayne is making his plays for her in daylight now, then the dynamics are changing.   


  
"Let 'em suspect."  


  
"Then they would keep her from coming. They would make her stay away." She pauses a calculated second before adding, "Then who would slay your Reaver dreams?"  


  
The tension in the room spikes for a moment to unbearable levels, and she gasps as the air is sucked from her lungs. "I told you we ain't never gonna talk about that," the mercenary snarls through gritted teeth; she can hear them grinding together like cinder blocks.   


  
"That is why you summoned me," she presses, taking another step towards him. She knows this tune; they've danced to it countless times since Miranda. "You need the girl to fight your battles."  


  
"I don't need no one to fight my battles for me, Crazy."  


  
"And yet you watch her, night after night, battling demons in your brain."  


  
"Shut up."  


  
"You have very ugly nightmares, Jayne Cobb. Ugly and bloody and full of corpses. No place for little girls."  


  
"Shut up or I will shut you up."  


  
River pauses in her slow advance. She can sense rather than see the edge of the bed, less than a foot from where she stands. Jayne's breathing is louder now, a mix of proximity and emotion. She can picture him, sprawled on the bed, one foot on the floor, the other bent at the knee and planted on the mattress. His hands would be crossed lazily over his stomach, or maybe one was flung carelessly over his knee; the definition of a lounging predator.   


  
"Yes," she murmurs to the dark. "You would."  


  
She blinks once.  


  
Then, very softly, "Give me a mission."  


  
There is a pause of precisely 2.3 seconds.  


  
Then he turns on the light.  


  
"All right," he says, eyes shadowed in the harsh glare. "Take your clothes off."  


  
  
  


\---------------------------

  


  
  
  
Men like Jayne Cobb liked to rule their own destiny. It was what drove his hatred towards River for so long; an interloper interfering with his personal well-being. There was a reason he kept his muscles so toned and his bunkroom stocked with new weaponry. Nobody got the best of Jayne Cobb. He was the master of his universe. He was in complete control.  


  
Which was why in his nightmares, he saw Reavers.  


  
Reavers were the one thing that terrified the mercenary; blinding terror; absolute. They came in numbers too dizzying to compute, swarming like cannibal ants, and big men like Jayne made a hell of a supper. They weren't just the embodiment of terror; they were Terror itself.  


  
And she'd killed them.  


  
An itty bitty, skinny minny, will-o-the-wisp slip of a girl, with skin like bone china and wrists like bird bones, had killed dozens of the ravening creatures and come through with barely a scratch, while Jayne "the killer" Cobb had cowered behind a blast door and bled from the shoulder like a stuck pig.  


  
Things like that galled men like Jayne. Made them feel like cowards. Made them feel like less than a man. Little girls killing monsters: it didn't make a lick of sense, and it left a bad taste in the back of his mouth. Nobody decided Jayne's actions unless he _let_ them, and he'd never let anyone as crazy as River Tam control _his_ fate.  


  
So what does a man do in that situation? When someone comes along and, without so much as a how d'ye do, reaches in their hand and takes control?  


  
Well a man like Jayne Cobb... he takes it back.  


  
  
  


\---------------------------

  


  
  
  
The light is sharp, cold, and collected, and forms a semi-circle of pure white around Jayne on the bed. It's directly over his head, casting the rugged planes of his face in shadow. River sees just hollows where his eyes should be, and the emptiness makes her shiver even as her hands carefully guide her dress off her shoulders. It floats down her body to pool around her feet. The light barely reaches her, tickling the tips of her toes as she steps out of the ring of chiffon, naked body sheathed in shadow.  


  
"Turn around. Nice and slow."  


  
Slowly, she pivots in a circle, hands held out to either side. As she comes to a standstill facing him again, she consciously strikes the same pose as when the blast doors opened after she'd slaughtered those heaps of Reavers: arms spread slightly, feet shoulder width apart, left knee bent inward just enough to almost be coquettish. She knows he wants her to stand like this; it's his fantasy, subduing her in the moments after her exhibition of supremacy.   


  
She watches him through the curtain of her hair as he lets out a slow, satisfied sigh. "Yeah," he says. "Just like I remember. How long's it been since you was last here, girl?"  


  
"Three days."  


  
"Tell me all them hours and minutes and stuff."  


  
"Three days, four hours, six minutes."  


  
"Now see? That's sexy as hell right there. You know why that's sexy as hell? Cuz it means you count the minutes you're away from me. Ain't that right?" He sits up, a languid roll until he's in an upright position. He's barechested but wears a pair of plain black boxers. He really shouldn't bother; they don't hide anything. But then, that's why he does it – because he can, and he doesn't care. And because he likes being clothed as he gets her naked; one more level of power.  


  
The light falls primarily behind him now, so it's his silhouette that speaks to her. "Tell Jayne you miss him when you're away."  


  
His hand reaches out to stroke her knee, and she quivers as she answers. "I miss you."  


  
"Why's that, you s'pose?"  


  
"Because you give me a mission."  


  
"Say it to me in real people speak."  


  
His hands are massaging her thighs now, calloused fingers and rough palms like fine grained sandpaper on her smooth skin. It makes it hard to concentrate, but she manages to get her tongue together enough to say, "You tell me what to do."  


  
"Mmmm..." Jayne leans forward, pressing his face into her belly and breathing deeply, before exhaling and nuzzling her navel. "Yeah I do. You like that, don't you?"  


  
"Yes." Her body trembles as his hands graze down her thighs to tease the backs of her knees.   


  
"Yes what?"  


  
River closes her eyes as his deep-throated growl vibrates through her abdomen. She can almost imagine her eggs dancing in their ovaries. She wants that growl to fill her like an ocean. She wants to make love to his voice.  


  
"Yes, my Jayne," she breathes.  


  
"Mmmm..." Jayne stretches against her like a pleased cat. "Damn, I love how you say that, girl. All breathy and needy and such. Makes me hot all over." He gazes up her body, chin tilted up to rest just below her breasts as his arms wrap loosely around her hips, holding her close. "Tell me, crazy. How'd such a needy little thing as you kill all them Reavers, huh?"  


  
His thumbs are stroking back and forth along the creases of her thighs, just below her buttocks, and River's head is spinning. Such powerful hands... "Skill, my Jayne," she answers, voice shaking. She wants to put her hands on his shoulders to take the pressure off her trembling knees. But she doesn't.   


  
"Skill, huh?" One hand curls forward, fingers stroking over her slit from the back forward, and she jumps with a gasp.   


  
"And instinct." Her voice quavers; her fingers flex. His shoulders are gleaming in the garish bedlight.   


  
"Skill and instinct." Jayne gives her a feral grin. "I got them, too, you know. I got skill and instinct. Got 'em in spades. And they'd lick yours in a fight. Like rock, paper, scissors." His eyes dance. "Wanna see?"  


  
Without waiting for her answer, he presses a finger into her body.  


  
River arches her back, letting out a wordless cry of surprise as her knees finally give out and she's forced to plant her hands on his shoulders to stay upright. Air disappears and she struggles to suck in a breath.  


  
"Crazy girl?"  


  
"M...my Jayne..." she gasps.  


  
"Who told you you could touch me?"  


  
River moans, balling her hands into fists against his shoulders to reduce surface area. "Please..." she pleads, then whimpers as he starts to move his finger inside her in slow, minimal strokes. Enough to make her body take notice, but nowhere near enough to take her over the edge.  


  
"Uh-uh," he refuses. "Ain't you the girl who killed all them Reavers? Ain't that what we just been talkin' about? Gotta be strong to do that. Gotta have stamina. I want to see you use it." As if to exclamate his point, he nonchalantly pushes a second finger in to join the first, simultaneously stretching her wider and moving deeper.  


  
With a soft cry of frustration, River pushes away from his shoulders. She wavers for a moment, arms held out to either side in a desperate play for balance. Jayne's arm is still wrapped around her hips as his fingers tease her from behind, so she can't pull too far away.   


  
"Now ain't you just a good girl," Jayne purrs, massaging her knee with his other hand. "See? Ain't so hard, now is it?" He gives an appreciative twist of his fingers inside her body, making her squeal. He laughs against her stomach. "Yeah, you aren't so tough, are ya?"  


  
His fingers are filling and stretching her, slowly burning up the nerve centers in her pelvis, and she wants more. Choking out a soft moan, she lets her feet slide a little further apart, opening herself wider for him.  


  
Jayne chuckles. "You like this, huh?" He teases her entrance with a third finger and River gasps, reflexively leaning forward in open invitation. "Ooh, yeah, stand like that, baby girl. Just exactly like that."  


  
Her eyes are closed but she can feel his bristly beard against her breast moments before his warm mouth closes around her nipple, sucking firmly. " _Ai ya lao tian..._ " she moans, struggling to stay upright. The position isn't an easy one to hold: feet spread, arms held out and slightly back to counteract the drag of her upper body, which is tilted forward at almost a ninety degree angle; almost, but not quite. She knows if she could see herself in a mirror she'd look like an absurdly posturing bird.   


  
Jayne's starting to heat up now; she can feel it in an increase in suction against her breast as his fingers begin to pick up speed and start pumping in and out of her in earnest. "Yes... yes, oh my Jayne... yes...!" she moans, letting her head drop forward to rest against his shoulder, hoping he doesn't shrug her away, telling her again not to touch him. It's impossible to rock her body in this position, and the stillness is driving her crazy. She wants to move! In desperation she flexes her internal muscles, squeezing his fingers in an effort to draw him deeper still. The result is a slow, pulsing pleasure, like the tolling of a heavy bell, that spreads down her thighs and up into her belly. Moaning louder, she does it again.  


  
Jayne pulls away from her breast and she wants to cry. "Hands on the bed," he growls near her ear. "And hold on tight."  


  
He doesn't need to tell her twice. As he stands up, slithering around her body like a coil of smoke, River lets herself fall forward until her hands make contact with the mattress. Fisting the coverlet into makeshift handles, she cries out in distress as his fingers withdraw from her body. "No! More, please!"  


  
Jayne's only answer is a low, throaty bark of laughter. "Yeah," he says. "All right."  


  
He grabs her hips.  


  
River sucks in a deep breath, then expels it in a long cry, arching her back as he slams into her.  


  
  
  


\---------------------------

  


  
  
  
Simon would never understand.  


  
Simon has an orderly brain. Neat little boxes categorize his thoughts, emotions, experiences and ambitions. River has her own box; so does Kaylee. The rest of the crew are lumped into a separate box, while the Alliance in general has a whole honeycomb all its own. When he needs something, all he has to do is open the lid of the applicable box, fish around, and take out what he needs. Then he locks up and moves on.  


  
River used to have boxes. But now all the lids are gone and the locks are broken, and everything mixes like a Technicolor margarita in her brain.   


  
The crew thinks she's gotten better since Miranda, and who is she to dispel their fantasies? After all, it's not a complete lie. Her sentences are more lucid; her psychic abilities more in control. That's what happens when you don't have Alliance bigwigs slamming needles into your brain and stimulating your nightmares with chemical cocktails every day of the week. Now when she eats, she can taste her food. She'd forgotten that food could have taste, and now every meal is a culinary explosion.  


  
But that doesn't mean she's all better, and that's what she doesn't tell the crew. Not even Simon.  


  
They changed her brain. The Alliance took it apart and put it back together, but they left out key pieces and added new upgrades. She literally doesn't know her own mind anymore. Simon thinks he can turn her back into the sweet fourteen year-old girl who went away to school all those years ago, and she doesn't have the heart to tell him it's never going to happen. She's too different; too patchwork. They took away the little girl and replaced her with an assassin. Simon can't reverse that programming, because it's _not_ programming. It's not software; it's hardware. They _changed her brain_.  


  
It hurts when she thinks about tending flowers. In her head, she always snips the heads off the roses.  


  
An assassin without a mission is like a countdown frozen on 00:01; a hairsbreadth away from completion. Her thoughts swirl in dizzying disarray, desperate for a target; for somewhere to focus her concentration. She absorbs the thoughts and emotions of those around her, devoid of any buffer that could somehow make the confusion less intense. It makes her wish she was crazy again; really crazy. Not this part-time crazy that switches on and off at will. At least when she was crazy she had somewhere to hide. She could throw up a wall of indecipherable psychosis and lose herself in the maze of her own brain.  


  
But now she's getting better. Now she's "making progress." Where before she could lean on Simon when the voices got too demanding, now she has to keep herself isolated. Then her episodes were seen as symptoms; now they're viewed as setbacks. She doesn't know how to make her brother understand that they aren't setbacks; they're just who she is. She will always be this way, driven by the need for a purpose; a mission. The longer she goes without one, the harder and harder it is for her to focus, the deeper and deeper she sinks.  


  
But Jayne tells her what to do. He gives her a mission, even if that mission is just to take all her clothes off and let him ride her from dusk till dawn; as if dominating her will somehow allow him to dominate the Reavers that swarm through his head. Perhaps it's not the most virtuous relationship, but it clears her head and gives her direction.   


  
She's using Jayne as much as he's using her.  


  
  
  


\---------------------

  


  
  
  
She's tight and warm and Jayne loves the way she buries her face in his blankets to muffle the sound of her moans. Her pale skin glows in the sharp white light and he rakes his eyes down her smooth back, watching the way her shoulders tense and release with each thrust, admiring the contrast of his dark thigh as it rocks against her white hip.   


  
" _Ta ma de_ , pretty girl," he growls, spreading his hands over her smooth white buttocks and squeezing. "You fit me jus' right, don'tcha? Ohhhh yeah, yes you do." He brings one hand down in a stinging slap, and River rewards him with a yelp. "Tell me how it feels, crazy girl," he instructs, rubbing the red hand mark he's left behind, diffusing the sting while simultaneously reminding her he can do it again if he wants. She moans something into his bedding, but that's unacceptable. Sliding his hand up her spine, skin made slippery with sweat, he wraps his fingers in her hair and _pulls_.  


  
River stiffens and keens desperately as he tugs her head up from the bed. Her back arches as he slowly pulls her backward, until he can lean forward and growl in her ear.   


  
"I said _tell me how it feels_ ," he snarls, pressing his belly against her back, his chest against her shoulders, his free hand snaking around to span her flat stomach and hold her upright. His other fingers are still wound in her hair and he keeps her neck arched backward so his rough cheek can rub against her soft one while he hungrily mouths her jawline.  


  
"H...Hot...!" River squeaks. "Tight...!" He tugs her head to the side so he can get at her neck. "I... I think you're... too big... for... for me...!"  


  
Jayne grins a wicked little smile and bites at her pulse. "Cuz you're jus' a little thing, ain't you?" he pants. "So tiny I could snap you." To punctuate his point he slams his hips up tight against her, pushing himself deeper, forcing her up onto her tiptoes with the impact.   


  
She cries out.   


  
"Squeeze me," he growls.   


  
Her hand scrabbles at his arm as she tries to reach her clit. Jayne grabs her hand and keeps it pressed beneath his own against her stomach.  


  
"I said, _squeeze me_ ," he snarls.  


  
River lets out a soft, desperate sob, her head lolling back against his shoulder. He feels her internal muscles contract around him, squeezing his cock, and his eyes cross.  


  
"Fuck yes," he groans. "Again."  


  
She squeezes him again. "Please...," she moans.  


  
"Don't talk!" he snaps. "Did I tell you you could talk?" He gives her a small shake. "Now do it again!"  


  
She does, moaning out a wordless sound. Jayne lets his eyes close and presses his forehead against her shoulder. River doesn't wait to be told anymore; she starts squeezing him rhythmically as he stands still, not bothering to rock now that she's doing the work. Her supple muscles flutter around his cock, and he's so rock hard he thinks he's going to snap off inside her. He can hear her breathing getting shallow; short, staccato pants that mimic his own.  


  
"Oh fuck... oh yes... harder... Do it HARDER," he groans, dragging her hand up from her stomach to squeeze her breast. He presses her slender fingers into the giving globe of flesh, hearing her whimper from the stimulation. Her body's contractions get stronger, and now he can barely see because it feels so gorram _good_.  


  
"Please... please...!" she pleads, and he knows she's close to orgasm from the way her body shakes against him. "PLEASE!"  


  
The desperation in her voice is what sends him over the edge; the naked need. Choking out a wordless sound, he sinks his teeth into her shoulder as he explodes inside her, pulsing warmth into her glowing body.  


  
River keens. "Pleeeeeeease...!" she begs, struggling in his arms. "Please, m-my Jayne...!"  


  
"Please what?" he groans near her ear, darting out his tongue to taste a droplet of sweat that's rolling down her cheek. He wants to collapse on the bed with her; wants to use her as a pillow and sleep for a thousand years.  


  
River whimpers and flexes her internal muscles once more around his flaccid cock. He can feel her quivering, perched on the edge.  


  
"Please let me fall..." she whispers, voice shaking as she lets her head drop forward, chin on her chest. "Please.... please...."  


  
"Mmmm..." Jayne drops wet, lazy kisses along her shoulder as he lets go of her hair, curving the hand around to cup her chin and draw her head back up again. Her body is quivering, humming like a high tension wire, and she moans as his fingers trace down her swanlike throat.   


  
"You wanna come?" he murmurs, nuzzling her cheek. River groans, writhing weakly in his arms. "Shhh, shhhh, I asked you a question, pretty girl. You gonna answer me?"   


  
"...Yes..."  


  
"Look at me." She rolls her head to the side, fixing him with glazed, wanton eyes. He taps his thumb against her lips. "You wanna come?"  


  
Her mouth trembles as she whispers her reply. "...Yes..."  


  
"Yes what?" And just so she doesn't forget, he lets her hand fall away from her breast so he can guide his fingers between her legs and massage her swollen clit.  


  
River gasps, body arching away from him as she tries to gain more pressure from his hand. "Yes, my Jayne, please, my Jayne!" she exclaims, panting for breath.  


  
"What do you want me to give you?"  


  
"Let me come! Please please, my Jayne, let me come!"  


  
He grins. _Wo de ma_ , he loves the way she begs.  


  
"Shhhh, pretty girl," he soothes, kissing her chin. Pulling back slightly, he nuzzles her lips.  


  
"No," he says, and pushes her onto the bed.  


  
  
  


\----------------

  


  
  
  
Something inside River snaps, and the little girl goes away.  


  
The tremors stop. The desperation eases. Cold, clinical decisiveness takes over. She is Death. No one denies her; _no one_.   


  
She flips over, fingers hooked into talons, ready to tear into Jayne's flesh and teach him the error of false pride-  


  
-only he's ready for that, and pins her flat.  


  
"You wanna fight me, little girl?" he snarls, crushing her down into the mattress, faces mashed together. "That what you want? You want to show me who's boss?"  


  
She snaps at his lips, managing to catch the bottom one between her teeth, drawing blood before he yanks his face away. "Gorrammit!" he snarls, and kisses her, grinding his mouth against hers to keep her head still. River reacts by clawing into his back, pummeling his thighs with her heels. There's blood under her fingernails, blood in her mouth. She knows he'll be peppered black and blue. She doesn't care.  


  
He's still kissing her, and something inside River snaps. The little girl comes back and she whimpers into his mouth. Her fingers loosen, kneading his back instead of tearing. Her slender dancer's legs wrap around his waist as she lifts her hips, rubbing against him, desperate for friction. She needs to quell this ache inside of her; it burns, hollowing her out like an old-time canoe.   


  
Jayne purrs against her lips, drawing back and leaving her gasping. "Uh-uh, pretty girl," he pants, shaking his head. Sweat dews on his skin like little white diamonds. "Ain't I already told you no?"  


  
"Pleeeease," she moans as he sits up and pushes her legs aside. "My Jayne! Please, my Jayne!"  


  
"Quiet," he snaps, and she bites her tongue, chastised. His face softens a fraction, and he glides his fingers up her inner thigh. River moans softly, letting her legs fall open.  


  
"Gorram, you smell good," he growls, leaning forward to nip at the dip of her lower belly, just above her sensitive mound.   


  
River gasps, raising her knees and rubbing the soles of her feet against his rucked up blankets. "Yes..." she pants. "Yes, please... Oh... oh oh oh...!"  


  
"Put your feet on my shoulders," he grunts against her, and River does so without question. It's so much easier when he tells her what to do. Her brain doesn't waste time calculating the thousand and one possible outcomes for any given decision. It becomes blank canvas.  


  
"Smells like sex," he mumbles, dropping a kiss at the top of her slit.   


  
River feels the air in her lungs disappear again as she bears down on his shoulders with her feet, raising her hips up toward his mouth. The room around her is spinning and she wonders if it's real or if it's all in her mind. She lets her arms fall around her head, feeling the tendrils of her long dark hair spread out around her like a silk blanket. She's weightless; drifting on a cloud; cast off in the void of space.  


  
Then his tongue touches her clit, and the universe collapses to a singularity around his mouth.  


  
This is torture. Slow, magnificent torture. Every muscle in her body is coiled, ready to spring. She rocks her hips against his face, delirious and incoherent. She realizes she's speaking and doesn't know what she's saying. It takes her a moment to figure out she's reciting the Periodic Table in backwards alphabetical order, and by the time she's got that sorted, he's started thrusting his fingers into her again and she's lost.  


  
She wants to come. She _needs_ to come. Every nerve ending from her pelvis to her breasts is on fire, but she can't move her arms to touch herself and soothe the ache. He'd just smack her hands away if she tried, and then he'd make her wait longer.   


  
Her nipples throb. Her legs quiver. She's going to come any second... but she won't. Good girls with bad brains take orders and keep them. Jayne told her no. She couldn't come now if she wanted to.   


  
And sainted Buddha, she _wants to_.  


  
When his mouth moves away she starts to cry. The space between her legs is suddenly cold and empty, and it's not _fair_. She did what he wanted! She kept herself whole! She needs so badly to fall apart, but she hasn't; she's a good girl! A GOOD GIRL!   


  
"Nooooooooo...!" she moans, covering her face with both hands and sobbing in earnest.   


  
"Hey, hey, 'nuff of that," Jayne soothes, gently picking her hands away from her face. She stares up at him, not bothering to hide the hurt in her damp eyes.   


  
"Why?" she croaks. There is moisture on his lips and her throat burns with fresh tears.  


  
"Cuz you've been a good girl," he tells her, almost as if the tables have been flipped and now he's reading _her_ mind. "And good girls get rewarded."  


  
He brings one hand up to touch her lips and she instantly recognizes the taste on his fingertips. Opening her mouth obediently, she lets him slide his fingers past her lips, closing her eyes and sucking gently. Through her desire she can feel his mind open to her like an unlocked diary. It's a warm place, not dark and thony as it used to be. She can almost forget the sore ache in her lower belly as she curls up in his head and milks his fingers with her mouth.  


  
Then she feels his other hand taking her wrist, guiding her hand lower. Reflexively she curls her fingers, wrapping them around his soft cock; it's already starting to reharden, and jumps faintly in her grasp.  


  
Jayne moans against her shoulder, dragging his hand up to prop himself on one elbow beside her. "That's right," he urges her, voice gravelly with lust. "I'm gonna let you tumble, pretty girl, but you're gonna do it with me. _Dong ma?_ So the quicker you get me hard for you, the quicker I show you supernovas."  


  
  
  


\----------------------

  


  
  
  
River moans around his fingers, and her eyes flutter open to gaze at him. With her cheeks hollowed out from suction and her skin glistening with sweat, she could almost be one of the girls in his collection of porn vids. But none of those girls have eyes like this one. Her eyes could skin a man alive if she wanted, then put him back together again. And right now she's got them focused smack on his, so full of gorram trust it makes his throat close.  


  
She barely needs to stroke him three times before he's solid as stone again. It's all in the eyes, and he's pretty sure she knows it.  


  
"That's what I like, baby girl," he moans, sliding his fingers from her mouth as she runs her hand down the sensitive vein along the bottom of his cock. His body shudders, already demanding more attention. "You know all the things I like, don't you?"  


  
She nods, still watching him with those big, trusting eyes of hers.   


  
"What else you know, little girl? Why don't you show me."  


  
River nods again, slowly. Rolling onto her side so their bellies are pressed together, she hooks her leg over his hips, her small hand still stroking him with long, maddening caresses.   


  
"What're you doin', girl?" he murmurs against her forehead, his breath puffing through her hair as she dips her face to trail her lips across his collarbone.  


  
"Kissing you," she murmurs in return.  


  
"Why?"  


  
He can feel her lips curve into a smile in the hollow at the base of his throat. "Because you like it," she says, and kisses his pulse.  


  
Jayne closes his eyes, grinning as he rolls onto his back with her sprawled on top of him. "I do at that," he agrees.   


  
Her lips are feathersoft against his skin as she explores his chest, his throat, the dips of his shoulders, the strong line of his jaw. It's almost enough to make him forget her silky hand toying with his lower body.  


  
Almost, but not quite.  


  
"What else I like, girl?" he asks, a low rumble that travels up from the base of his throat.   


  
River giggles – he likes that, too – and slowly pushes up on his chest until she's looking down into his eyes. "You like girl bodies," she coos, drawing her hand away from his cock and propping herself up on his chest, straightarmed. "Being in them, being on them, being near them." She traces his lips with one fingertip. "But especially being in them."  


  
Jayne grins and nips at her finger. "Then gimme what I like."  


  
River giggles, her earlier tears forgotten thanks to his playful teasing. She gets up on all fours, straddling his head with her hands, his hips with her knees, and wiggles her bottom eagerly.  


  
Jayne laughs. "You gonna do it, girl, or you gotta have me show you where the pieces fit?"  


  
River beams, then schools her face into a serious expression. Slowly, she starts to spread her knees apart, lowering her hips until the head of his cock brushes her opening.  


  
They both moan. Jayne's not sure if he's the one who guides himself into her body or if she takes charge of that, and right now he honestly doesn't care. All he knows is that in no time at all she's rocking on top of him, back arched, throat gleaming in the harsh white light as her long hair tickles his knees.  


  
"You... are so... gorram beautiful..." he grunts, sliding his hands up her body to palm her breasts. She moans, undulating against him. "And you're all MINE." He punctuates the last word with a firm squeeze.  


  
River gasps, nodding frantically. "Yes... oh yes, my Jayne... all yours... she is all yours..." Her hands come up to hold his wrists. "Keep her... keep her, don't let go...!"  


  
"I ain't lettin' go, hummin'bird," he growls, feeling heat beginning to pool in the pit of his stomach. He wants to watch her fly apart before his eyes roll back in his head and he loses her in his own climax.  


  
His hands slide down her belly to grab her hips, stopping her motion with a firm grip. When River's eyes fly open in distress, he nods at her.   


  
"Come," he commands, rubbing his thumbs over the concave valley of her stomach. "Now."  


  
It's like magic.  


  
He watches her eyes widen; sees her body stiffen; feels her hands clutch at his shoulders as the orgasm takes her. Then she's throwing back her head and crying out his name and pulse, pulse, pulsing around him, and it's like she's six miles deep and two inches wide, the way she squeezes and pulls him in.  


  
He grabs her arms and yanks her down, crushing her against his chest as he gives in and comes as well. He needs this skin, this flesh to flesh, or it won't seem real. She'll be a ghost, like the River in his nightmares who fades away and leaves him alone with the corpses of dead Reavers. But if this River fades away, he won't even have that much.   


  
At least the corpses prove she was there.  


  
  
  


\---------------------

  


  
  
  
River has never trembled as much in her life as she does when she trembles with Jayne. She thinks it's because his body mass is so much greater than hers. His shivering is suitably magnified, so that it shakes through her smaller body like earthquakes.  


  
Or something. She doesn't know, and in these early moments, doesn't care to find out.  


  
"Jayne... my Jayne..." she mumbles, tracing her name in the sweat on his arm with one lazy fingertip. His broad hand strokes her hair, soothing and rhythmic, and she wants to dance with him; to see if he has this rhythm in his feet as well as his hands. But she's too tired to ask him, so she settles for pressing a kiss against his shoulder, enjoying the way her lips leave a butterfly imprint in the moisture on his skin.  


  
"You know, River girl... all you gotta do is say no."  


  
She closes her eyes and snuggles down on his chest. He always does this, every time. Someday he'll learn he doesn't have to. Until then, she'll make do.  


  
"I won't do this no more if you say no."  


  
River smiles dreamily. "I know," she murmurs, tucking a hand up under her cheek, just above his heart.   


  
"I don't wanna be like them _hun dans_ at that gorram Academy, y'hear? You don't gotta do what I say. You just gotta tell me no."  


  
River sighs, rubbing their bellies together to soothe his turbulent thoughts. "I know," she repeats. "Sleep easy, my Jayne." She directs drowsy eyes upward and smiles at him. "With you, I like to say yes."  


  
  
  
  
  
**THE END**


End file.
